chat

If one known to the commenter is readily available that's fair I suppose, but sometimes the fictional example can be particularly poignant and the basis of your criticism can be advantageously used to illustrate something specific about a given situation and its broader context or impact that an isolated real event might not. As an example, take this small except from Pratchett's 'Small Gods' - largely a critique of religious fanaticism, group think and in/out group behaviors - in which the fictional philosopher "Didactylos" debates the practice of capital punishment (by way of public stoning) of people who've transgressed against the stringent edicts of the central theocracy in that book:

“I know about sureness,' said Didactylos. 'I remember, before I was blind, I went to Omnia once. And in your Citadel I saw a crowd stoning a man to death in a pit. Ever seen that?'

'It has to be done,' Brutha mumbled. 'So the soul can be shriven and-'

'Don't know about the soul. Never been that kind of philosopher,' said Didactylos. 'All I know is, it was a horrible sight.'

'The state of the body is not-'

'Oh, I'm not talking about the poor bugger in the pit,' said the philosopher. 'I'm talking about the people throwing the stones. They were sure all right. They were sure it wasn't them in the pit. You could see it in their faces. So glad it wasn't them in the pit that they were throwing just as hard as they could.”

I could instead have used some factual reporting about an instance of religious mistreatment by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Iran or something, but I frankly don't think that would have been equally illuminating.

Edit: Separately, as a counter-point to your assertion that "Made up shit only supports arguments about made up shit.", I'd point out that that doesn't even apply in the hard sciences. Einstein - with his justified love of the Gedankenexperiment - would have vehemently disagreed. So would Nicola Tesla, without the imagination of whom we probably would have eventually had a moden transmission system for energy, but nowhere near as early.